


it was your heart on the line

by crownlessliestheking



Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst, As in this is cathartic for me, Breakups, Catharsis, Decameron Project 2020, Loves Which Have Ended Badly, POV First Person, Short Story, original writing - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-03
Updated: 2020-04-03
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:20:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23461651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crownlessliestheking/pseuds/crownlessliestheking
Summary: He might have let go, but I held on. I let my nails dig into the bloodied, bruised mass of him, squeezed until it was nothing but pulp between my fingers, and threw it right back in his face. Three years, wasted and gone.
Kudos: 1





	it was your heart on the line

**Author's Note:**

> My submission for the Decameron Project 2020! It was pretty cathartic to write, and probably something I've been putting off for way too long. I don't normally do first person, or anything all that...personal, but conceptually I love this project, and y'all know I love to write. 
> 
> If you're interested, you can find all the stories here: https://thedecameronproject.wordpress.com/

A door slams like a gunshot, the dying groan of an old wooden frame echoing soon after it. The tile is cold beneath my bare feet despite the sweltering weather outside; a summer storm has set in, all roiling thunder and sheets of rain pounding down two stories above my head, the noise diluted into something bearable. Nature’s rage distilled into nothing but a backdrop.

_Do you still love me?_

_No._

Funny, how a single word can end a conversation, a relationship, a fight drawn out like a rubber band stretched too tight. The snapback of it should sting and leave a welt, but it doesn’t. Instead, there’s only numbness, which is its own kind of relief.

I feel the shape of it in my mouth, round and smooth like a stone. A comforting weight, even if it was a knot in my throat as I choked it down for hours and hours and tears and tears. The back of my tongue is strained sour with the effort.

I walk to the door anyway, press my nose up to the pane of glass just to the side of it. The world is blurred and grey, and I must squint to see clearly, but the squeal of tires as a car speeds away is unmistakable. The plain, unimpeded view of suburbia, continuing to exist peacefully, remains.

Drive safe, I type into my phone, send the message off into the ether to be read later, or never, or whenever. It doesn’t matter; this is a gesture of habit more than anything else.

I don’t waste time on platitudes to myself, though- the truth is plain and simple. It’s over, and any love I once bore is gone now, eroded by betrayal. The attempt to win me back, frustrating as it was, had only been the final nail in the coffin.

But I’m not the one in it, I know.

However suffocating those hours earlier had been, I’m alone now, and later, I think I can revel in it. But now, my eyes sting and my face feels swollen with too many tears, my cheeks rubbed raw from scrubbing them away with a sleeve. Unattractive, pathetic. I lick my lips, taste the salt dried there. It stings.

The air is a cool balm against them.

The thing is, I’ve always been alright on my own. I’m self-contained, all of me held neatly in my own two hands. Watching someone else’s hands open and let a piece of me fall, shatter, smash against the floor, wasn’t something I thought I’d see. I hadn’t known just how much of myself I’d given away. I hadn’t had the time to brace myself for it when it happened. But I’d known just how much of himself he’d given me, and I’d watched his eyes widen and hurt flicker across his face before it shuttered. He hadn’t considered failure was an option, when he came. He thought I’d be won over, coaxed back, settled down and trusting again. He thought that I would let him pick those pieces back up and tape them together.

But that part of me is gone, ground to dust under my own heel. He broke it, but I ensured he’d never be the one to fix it.

He might have let go, but I held on. I let my nails dig into the bloodied, bruised mass of him, squeezed until it was nothing but pulp between my fingers, and threw it right back in his face. Three years, wasted and gone. Absently, I wonder if I should have asked how he felt. But I’m not tempted to- it doesn’t matter, in the end.

It’s for the best, that he doesn’t see how easily I wash my hands clean afterwards. There’s no spot to curse, no poison to swallow in despair, no more tears left to shed. He saw them all, he caused them all, and it was a good thing that I’d never quite believed him, when he said he’d never hurt me. Even at the beginning when nothing else was, I knew that was a lie. 

I was the one who cried, but I know he’s the one who’ll feel worse about this come tomorrow morning. That desperate, stupid hope that had him showing up in the rain, standing there with flowers, that buoyed him up as he dragged me further down. I should regret crushing it, I should regret the hurt I dealt, but isn’t there something terribly satisfying about hurting someone who’s hurt you? Isn’t there something so much better, about hurting them worse?

Perhaps later, I’ll feel that vindication. In the morning, maybe. When exhaustion’s been sloughed off and this interminable, awful day can end when the sun is out and catching the dewdrops as it rises. When the rumbling croon of the thunder purrs itself to sleep, and lightning stops splitting the sky and lets it heal instead.

But now, I’m nothing but tired. I am hollow, a cracked clay cup, all the water leaked out and pooling around me. I sting and ache, rasp and catch against fingertips that might want to smooth me over. I’m raw, sharp edges now, patience and care and empathy eroded away. I think he expected me to have more of that pretty coating than I did, in the end. I think he wanted me to be more forgiving than I was.

I’ve always been one to hold a grudge. He ought to have known that.

On my way to the bathroom, I take the flowers and put them in a vase. My mother would like them, I think. It isn’t the flowers’ fault, and they are quite beautiful. But the card that goes with them, I rip in two, neat, and toss into the bin. Everything has already been said; words scribbled onto that this morning aren’t going to change anything.

The house is still quiet around me as I make my way up to the bathroom. The tap squeaks when I turn it, as it always does, and the white noise of water fills the room, more immediate than the muted rain outside. Gooseflesh prickle and rise as I strip down, leave my clothes in a pile on the floor. It’s colder without them, and I shiver, involuntary.

I don’t wonder whether I did the right thing. There’s no more room for what-if’s inside me, and I’ve never had much capacity for forgiveness. All of that has been scraped out of me, like pulp and seed from inside a pumpkin, leaving me clean and empty for the carving. There is no weight on my chest, all I want now is a hot shower, and quiet.

I let out a slow breath, and step under the spray of the shower, steam curling up around me. The mirrors are long since fogged over. Hot water slicks my skin, soaks through my hair, and I close my eyes.

Finally, warmth.


End file.
